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Yes Really! LOL.
That's how Windows does it.
The other issue is if you have a device that can only use say COM ports 1 to 4 and the COM ports 1-4 are already used up by Windows. In this case, you have to edit the Windows registry and get rid of all the COM port assignments and start again. Windows fun! It's actually easier than it sounds and I think someone even wrote a little program to do it. Called 'Com Arbitrator' or something like that.
In the old days it was even better where you had to physically remove the COM port card from the PC, (Windows 3.11/DOS era), set its COM port with jumper settings and also assign the hardware IRQ via jumper settings on the card and then put it back into the computer and cross fingers that there were no conflicts with the other hardware.
That's also where the phrase 'Plug and Play' came from where Windows auto configured the hardware as opposed to having to make all the manual hardware settings. Most called it 'Plug and Pray'.
All the best.
Cheers,
Damien.
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